Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill: The Podcast will drop thirty-six episodes on five Thursdays in June 2023 – both a celebration of Pride and a response to the banning of Queer books, history, and information for teens sweeping the U.S. I hope you’ll make it part of your LGBTQIA2+ Pride celebration, and help spread the word.

Here’s the official press release:

“If I’d found out that Abraham Lincoln was in love with another man back when I was thirteen, or fifteen, it would have changed my whole life,” author and podcast producer Lee Wind said. “Growing up gay and closeted, the idea that important people in history were also guys who like-liked other guys might have helped me love myself a little bit more – it certainly would have given me hope.”

“While I don’t have a time machine to go back and give my books to myself when I most needed them,” Wind said, “I can pay it forward. Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill: The Podcast is a way to empower the young people who need this today.”

Making the audiobook of Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill into a podcast that’s free and available to anyone, anywhere, is a way around the banning of books with LGBTQIA2+ content, and the recent legislation banning any mention of Queer lives and loves from public schools all the way through 12^th grade in Florida, and beyond.

“It turns out history is the carefully crafted and manipulated stories of the past in service to the people in power, which is why it generally doesn’t include the stories of women, or people of color, or Indigenous people, or disabled people, or poor people, and certainly not Queer people.” Wind said.

Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill is the fictional story of Wyatt, a bullied and closeted teen who triggers a conservative backlash and media firestorm when he reveals the real-world evidence that Abraham Lincoln was gay. The evidence that Lincoln was indeed in love with another man is further explored in Wind’s award-winning non-fiction book for ages 11 and up, No Way, They Were Gay? Hidden Lives and Secret Loves (Zest Books/Lerner Publishing Group), and the Lincoln chapter including the primary source letters and analysis is available as a free PDF download from the author’s website, leewind.org

Bonus episodes of the podcast will include the author interviewed by legendary children’s and YA author and poet Lesléa Newman, a new audio recording of the Lincoln chapter from No Way, They Were Gay?, and a sneak peek at the introduction from the author’s upcoming nonfiction title The Gender Binary is a Big Lie (Zest Books/Lerner Publishing Group, April 2024.)

The Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill audiobook is narrated by Michael Crouch, who also voiced the audiobook of Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill won the National Indie Excellence Award for Best Book: LGBTQ For Children & Young Adults and was named a Publishers Weekly Indie Success Story. Kirkus Reviews declared, “The premise is a real hook… with real potential to influence and educate, on top of entertaining.”

No Way, They Were Gay? won the 2022 International Literacy Association Book Awards: Young Adult Nonfiction, was named to the 2021 Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books, was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, and was an Outstanding Merit recipient of the Children’s Book Committee of the Bank Street College of Education “Best Books of the Year.” Foreword Reviews declared No Way They Were Gay? “Transmits rare facts and firsthand accounts with a sense of joyous wonder…”; Kirkus Reviews called it “Entertaining, illuminating, and an accessible antidote to dominant histories.” and it was featured in Publishers Weekly.

Lee Wind (he/him) holds a masters degree in education from Harvard, and writes stories to empower kids and teens to be their authentic selves and change the world – the same books that would have changed his life as a young gay, Jewish kid. Outside of writing, he works for the Independent Book Publishers Association as their Director of Education and Programs, and for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators as their official blogger. He is the organizer of the Queer Kid Lit Creators community, and runs the popular blog I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell Do I Read? – words his teenage self only dreamed of saying. Upcoming titles include The Gender Binary is a Big Lie (Zest/Lerner), the YA novel A Different Kind of Brave (Duet/Chicago Review Press), and the inspired-by-Queer History picture book Love of the Half-Eaten Peach (Reycraft). Lee lives in Los Angeles with his husband of more than 25 years, and they have a grown daughter. Visit Lee online at leewind.org.

(But you’re reading this, which means you’re already here!)

I’m excited to empower Queer teens with this podcast! Thanks for your support.

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee